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International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.

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Edgard Sánchez Ramírez is a longtime member of the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT), the Mexican section of the Fourth International. He is on the steering committee of the PRT and an active member of the Workers and People’s Political Organization (OPT), a political organization founded by the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) in 2011. In this interview conducted by Héctor A. Rivera in Mexico City, Sánchez talks about the neoliberal turn in Mexican politics in the late 1980s, its consolidation throughout the political system in the 1990s and its full-on implementation in the 2000s. A future q-and-a from the same interview with Sánchez will take up the current trajectory of Mexican politics.

The day after the Andalusian parliamentary elections on March 22, 2015, Podemos candidate Teresa Rodriguez made a statement that implies both a political balance sheet of the electoral campaign and anticipates its immediate political project as opposed to the social liberal government of Susana Díaz: “After elections all parties claim victory, but not us. We have obtained 15 seats in the Parliament but we have not achieved our objective because tomorrow we continue with the forty daily evictions from dwellings, Andalusia’s million unemployed and the million children living under the poverty line. Our goal is to win a political majority to govern in favor of the people and with the people as an active subject of its government. Until then we cannot claim victory”.

On February 5, 2015 the Tunisian parliament elected on October 26, 2014 gave a vote of confidence to the new government with an overwhelming majority of 81.5%. This major turning point in the political life of Tunisia takes place in a context of economic crisis and social tensions as demonstrations and strikes spread.

The expulsion of the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in November 2014 was a watershed moment. It deepened further the crisis in the Alliance between the ANC, COSATU and the South African Communist Party (SACP). In addition to fighting for a radical shift amongst trade unions, NUMSA also played a major role in the establishment of a new United Front which will be launched in 2015. In December 2014 Sam Ashman (SA) and Nicolas Pons-Vignon (NPV) interviewed Deputy General Secretary of NUMSA Karl Cloete (KC) about a tumultuous year and the road ahead.

If the Indian government wanted to become the laughing stock of the world, it couldn’t have done so more instantly and effectively than by banning the BBC documentary “India’s Daughter” on Delhi’s December 2012 gang-rape. Not only was the film watched by millions the world over; it became a cause celebre for feminists, defenders of free expression and even progressive Hollywood actors.

Heads of state understood the importance of the events of January. Representatives of “democracies” and dictatorships alike, they came to Paris and locked arms together to show solidarity “at the highest levels”. A spectacular gesture if ever there was one!

The Left Party is fighting for “a society in which no child has to grow up poor, in which all men and women can live a self-determined life in peace, dignity, and social security and can democratically shape social relations.” In order to achieve this, it demands “a different economic and social system: democratic socialism.” That is how the Left Party formulated its programmatic approach in its new Erfurt Party Programme of 2011.

The time I saw Charb in Paris was January 24, 2010, the day of the crowded commemoration of the French philosopher and activist Daniel Bensaïd at La Mutualité. During the speeches, Charb kept drawing and projecting vignettes about his comrade Daniel, whose book, Marx: Mode d’Emploi, he had illustrated a year earlier. In the deep sadness that filled the big room his vignettes constantly reminded us of Bensaïd’s subtle humor, of his little malicious smile with which he used to charm us all, slowly helping us to heal the loss. Director of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Charb was one of the ten cartoonists and journalists killed, together with two policemen, in the ferocious attack of January 7, 2015.

Neither do we condone the bombings and murder of journalists at their headquarters, however much we are repulsed by their racist, chauvinist and hateful Islamophobic caricatures of oppressed people. Neither do we condone the subsequent murders at the Paris Kosher supermarket.

Women and sexuality groups in Hong Kong express grave concern with the recent arrests by the Beijing authorities of five prominent female activists, including Li Tingting (李婷婷)(also known as Maizi麥子), Wei Tingting (韋婷婷), Wang Man (王曼) in Beijing, Wu Rongrong (武嶸嶸) in Hangzhou, and Zheng Churang (鄭楚然) (also known as Datu) in Guangzhou, but apparently with no solid legal ground.

The workers of VIOME in Thessaloniki, Greece, have stood up against unemployment and poverty by carrying through a long struggle to self-manage the occupied factory, in very adverse conditions. For two years now, they have been producing and selling ecological cleaning products at the occupied premises, ensuring a modest income for their families. They have been working on terms of equality, deciding collectively through the general assembly. At the same time they have received a big wave of solidarity from Greece and abroad, converting their struggle into an emblematic struggle for human dignity in crisis-stricken Greece.

The austerity programmes in Greece have had a particularly sharp effect on the health service with many health centres closed, mass lay-offs of health workers and drastic cuts in public health care, thus excluding 35% of the population from this fundamental right.

Shaimaa al-Sabbagh 32 years old, a mother, poet and member of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, was gunned down January 24 by black-clad snipers who were seen on video pointing rifles in her direction.